


Existentialism

by orphan_account



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/F, seriously you've been warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 14:04:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4022611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Carmilla hugs back, sniffling and swallowing down the want to tell Laura that she doesn’t understand, that everyone dies except her and she’s left, wandering the battlefield of life alone and wanting to die so badly that she almost stakes herself there and then"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Existentialism

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short one for you today. Some hollstein in anticipation for season two. Have fun.

Carmilla is very old.

She is old enough to have seen the world enraged in two wars and to have watched wall be built and crumble under the pressures of life.

Though she has not seen it all (300 plus years of life escape the naivety of believing she has witnessed everything), she has seen a lot. Memories burn into images somewhere at the back of her mind and mostly she sees them in blurs – passing segments that she can only remember certain things from like sounds or smells, as if they were hazy recollections of a drunk night out.

It’s not until she meets Laura Hollis that she becomes sober again

Because Carmilla is ancient, timeworn. Exhausted from living as if she is not really alive just kind of there, and Laura Hollis pays attention to her.

Until Laura, the thing that held the most clarity in Carmilla’s mind was Ell. It wasn’t purposeful. Carmilla would never linger on love on purpose because what is the point in hurting yourself that way, but sometimes she would be walking in the street and sunlight would hit blonde hair in exactly the way it did with Ell and echoes of wind chime laughter would pursue Carmilla’s thoughts with memories that made her want to lie down and never get up.

Laura was different though. Where Ell was a black and with photograph, distorted but still able to see, Laura was colour, high definition and sharp, like a knife or perhaps a stake.

Time passes in moments to Carmilla, she has lived too long, she supposes, to keep all of her memories, so she just lets days fly her by without paying much attention to anything.

But then there’s Laura.

Rare things in her life have made Carmilla want time to start passing normally again, wanting to savour every last part of Laura is one of them. Rare things in her life have made Carmilla want to be human again.

They’re doomed from the start. From the first “Sweetheart” and the first “Even you deserve better”.

Carmilla is too old to think that they could be anything else.

Because there is the first time that Laura touches her arm, just gently, and it makes Carmilla’s blood rush and heart beat as if she were alive but when the contact goes Carmilla feels more dead than she has since the coffin.

Also Laura is an idiot. However cute and beautiful and clever she may be, she has a tendency to walk into danger and when Carmilla was human she might have called it brave. She has seen too many people die now to know that it is not brave at all, it’s reckless, _stupid_.

Yet Carmilla finds herself killing a light demon just to save a human girl and if that’s not the most idiotic, reckless and stupid thing she’s ever done she doesn’t know what is.

(Maybe its kissing said human girl after Carmilla’s burnt up agonisingly in a pit for a week.)

After that they can only go downwards, or so Carmilla thinks. But Laura is stubborn and wonderful and Carmilla finds them floating rather than sinking.

Dating Laura would be exhilarating if Carmilla could breathe, but she can’t so she acquaints the feeling of freedom to exhilaration and leaves it at that.

Laura makes Carmilla feel _young,_ which is something that Carmilla has not felt in a while. They could be doing anything, from a picnic to stargazing to slobbing out on pizza and bad movies and Laura will laugh or smile or just simply say something and Carmilla feels as if she is eighteen and waltzing and oh so young and alive.

Cuddling has become a full time thing too, not that Carmilla would ever complain about being close to Laura. But sometimes, at two in the morning when Carmilla can’t sleep because she’s not used to sleeping at night, she’ll feel Laura tucked up against her side, breathing in and out against her, steady and so _painfully_ human that Carmilla has to slip out of bed and leave before she remembers how lifeless she is.

Christmas comes and goes and they’re still together.

Jokingly, LaFontaine makes comments about how Carmilla and Laura are polar opposites and Carmilla laughs with the rest of them. But the jokes feel so real because she and Laura _are_ opposite, they could never work together as anything, Carmilla is so dead and old and tired, whereas Laura is full of life and youth and excitement. But they do work together. Somehow.

On New Year’s Eve, Carmilla makes the resolution to stop over analysing things.  

To the outside world, they are like any other couple. Carmilla’s starting to feel like maybe that’s true now. Time still passes weirdly, but now she barely remembers anything other than Laura and that’s okay because it’s not like she would want to remember anything other than Laura.

Contentedness is always there with Laura, following them like the heavy scent of perfume. It comes hand in hand with the nabbing feeling in Carmilla’s head that is always quick to remind her that she is going to outlive Laura.

Carmilla is old. Too old to have thantophobia or any remote fear of death. She has thought occasionally, when she is looking at the sky or showering or something, that when death finally comes for her, they will have the decency to carry her to hell because she thinks she’ll be too tired to walk.

She hopes that death appreciates her efforts to avoid them.

She also hopes that death forgets that they have to come for Laura, or perhaps misses her name on his death register or whatever.

She _knows_ that that is never going to happen.

Still when Laura plants kisses on her neck and makes her lips tingle with electric life, Carmilla can’t help but to hope.

It takes a while for Carmilla to realise that hoping is useless.

Hoping just wastes the days away, days that she could be spending with Laura instead of lingering on inevitable prospects. So she lets it go, gives up the ‘what if’s’ and the aged thoughts that linger in her brain, pushes back the knowledge of Laura’s humanity so it sits with centuries old fogged up memories and instead focuses on Laura

Because when has she ever needed anything more.

She still has another good sixty years or so with Laura.

They’ll figure it out.

Their relationship dips up and down like a mountain range. Usually they’re happy, enveloped in each other and perfectly content, but sometimes they argue and when they do it lasts for weeks.

The first big argument happens around a month into their relationship, when Carmilla freaks out on Laura one night and leaves, returning two days later when she realises her life can never be the same as it was before Laura. Maybe that’s a bad thing.

Of course Laura is angry. There’s a lot of shouting and slamming of doors and they don’t fully settle back down until about a week later, when Carmilla cries and cries and confesses her fear of loneliness.

Wrapping her arms around Carmilla, Laura whispers something about never leaving Carmilla so she never has to be alone.

Carmilla hugs back, sniffling and swallowing down the want to tell Laura that she doesn’t understand, that everyone dies except her and she’s left, wandering the battlefield of life alone and wanting to die so badly that she almost stakes herself there and then.

Arguing continues, irregularly throughout their relationship, only happening massively about five times a year but filling in the gaps with small bickers about Carmilla’s mess or Laura’s nosiness. Always ending with a whispered apology across broken silence and kisses upon kisses of forgiveness.

They move together, not too far from the university but far enough to feel like independence. Laura gets a job and Carmilla spends days furnishing and decorating their apartment. Evenings are the best, when Laura is home from work and Carmilla is tired from painting and moving but they still find time for kisses and giggles, wandering hands and so much love that Carmilla feels as if she might burst.

Carmilla is so old. But she is beginning to think that, in her century’s long life, the sixty or so years that she’ll spend with Laura will be the best.

Waking up with Laura snuggled so close to her, soft and warm, is the best feeling ever, before Laura wriggles out from underneath Carmilla’s arm and gets changed for work, well aware of her girlfriend watching her get undressed. She makes Carmilla coffee and places it softly on the bedside table, murmuring an ‘I love you’ and placing a quick kiss on her forehead before she leaves.

Carmilla falls back asleep and wakes up to the phone ringing.

“Hello?” She murmurs groggily.

“ _Hello, is that Miss Karnstein.”_

Sitting up, Carmilla rubs her eyes and realises that the cup of coffee now sits cold on the bedside table. She yawns, not quite awake yet. “Who’s asking?”

“ _Miss Karnstein, there’s been an accident.”_

Now Carmilla is awake.

In all of her life, Carmilla has been to a hospital three times, mostly to steal blood. Everything is so white, so clean and sanitised that she feels as if she is leaving a trail of dirt.

She hates it, hates the smell of the waiting room and the faces filled with anxiety with the tap tap tapping of fingers against metal seats. The nurse comes to collect her and Carmilla feels numb as she walks and the nurse explains the car crash and statistics to her.

Laura is lying in a bed with white sheets and white covers, so peaceful that it is almost as if she is sleeping and Carmilla thinks that if this was a fairy tale then it would only take a kiss to wake her.

This is not a fairy tale.

Because there are scratches on Laura’s face and bandages on her wrists and the background noise of heart monitors and machinery. The scent of blood lies so thickly in the air that it overtakes the scent of disinfectant and Carmilla wants to throw up. Blood is never something she associated with Laura.

Sitting down in a seat next to the bed, Carmilla takes one of Laura’s hands in her own and turns to stone, not moving even when the gingers and Laura’s dad showed up with equally worried expressions plastered onto their faces.

Gently whispering reassurances to Laura, Carmilla finds herself going from ‘I love you’ to ‘please don’t leave me’ and it’s the most selfish thing she’s ever done.

Because Laura is dying. Even now, as the room is filled with sounds of gentle sobbing and broken silences, Carmilla can hear the heart monitor petering out but she still sits. Even when the rush of nurses comes in to the flat line Carmilla stays still, holes ripping across her chest and blood filling up her throat. Drowning her, suffocating her slowly and painfully.

She is so overwhelmingly tired.

That night she goes home alone to cold coffee sitting on her bedside table and an empty space in her bed. She finds the matches easily, the petrol in the garage.

Carmilla is so old.

 _Was_ so old.

She couldn’t take anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry, I feel so bad.   
> Come and yell at me at piegodess.tumblr.com


End file.
